CoChat
Sign Up
Cited by 780Perfectionism, Procrastination, Anxiety StudiesPersonality Traits and PsychologyGrit, Self-Efficacy, and Motivation

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 266 of the 266 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Perfectionism is increasing over time: A meta-analysis of birth cohort differences from 1989 to 2016

Open access
Curran, Thomas, Hill, Andrew P.·2019·Psychological Bulletin
DOI 10.1037/bul0000138
Open this paper in CoChat — free accountOpen PDF

Abstract

From the 1980s onward, neoliberal governance in the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom has emphasized competitive individualism and people have seemingly responded, in kind, by agitating to perfect themselves and their lifestyles. In this study, the authors examine whether cultural changes have coincided with an increase in multidimensional perfectionism in college students over the last 27 years. Their analyses are based on 164 samples and 41,641 American, Canadian, and British college students, who completed the Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale (Hewitt & Flett, 1991) between 1989 and 2016 (70.92% female, Mage = 20.66). Cross-temporal meta-analysis revealed that levels of self-oriented perfectionism, socially prescribed perfectionism, and other-oriented perfectionism have linearly increased. These trends remained when controlling for gender and between-country differences in perfectionism scores. Overall, in order of magnitude of the observed increase, the findings indicate that recent generations of young people perceive that others are more demanding of them, are more demanding of others, and are more demanding of themselves. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2019 APA, all rights reserved).

Overview

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1037/bul0000138

Cites

266 of 266 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Verification

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Citations

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Show all 264 references

Research works printed but not linked: 13

  1. [12]12. Bauman, Z. (2002). Individually together. In U. Beck and E. Beck-Gernsheim (Eds.), Individualization (pp. xix-xx). London: Sage.
  2. [21]21. Blyth, M. (2002). Great Transformations: The Rise and Decline of Embedded Liberalism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
  3. [65]65. Esposito, L. (2011). Neoliberalism and the Market Society. In John W. Murphy and Karen A. Callaghan (Eds.), Toward a Post-Market Society (pp. 29-48). New York, NY: Nova Science Publishers.
  4. [112]112. Hewitt, P. L., Flett, G. L., & Ediger, E. (1995). Perfectionism traits and perfectionistic self-presentation in eating disorder attitudes, characteristics, and symptoms. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 18, 317-326.
  5. [116]116. Hewitt, P. L., Newton, J., Flett, G. L., & Callander, L. (1997). Perfectionism and suicide ideation in adolescent psychiatric patients. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 25, 95-101.
  6. [132]132. Kernis, M. H., & Paradise, A. W. (2002). Distinguishing between secure and fragile forms of high self-esteem. In E. L. Deci & R. M. Ryan (Eds.), Handbook of self-determination research (pp. 339-360). Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press.
  7. [135]135. Klein, J. (2012). The Bully Society. New York, NY: New York University Press.
  8. [157]157. Missildine, W. H. (1963). Perfectionism-If you must strive to "do better.". In W. H. Missildine (Ed.), Your inner child of the past (pp. 75-90). New York, NY: Pocket Books.
  9. [174]174. Oliver, J. M., Hart, B. A., Ross, M. J., & Katz, B. M. (2001). Healthy Perfectionism and Positive Expectations About Counseling. North American Journal of Psychology, 3, 229-242.
  10. [181]181. Pew Research Center. (2007). How young people view their lives, futures and politics: A portrait of ''Generation Next''. Available at: http://people-press.org/report/300/a-portrait- ofgeneration-next. Accessed January 20, 2017.
  11. [207]207. Sherry, S. B., Mackinnon, S. P., & Gautreau, C. M. (2016). Perfectionists don't play nicely with others: Expanding the social disconnection model. In F. M. Sirois & D. S. Molnar (Eds.), Perfectionism, health, and well-being (pp. 225-243). New York: Springer.
  12. [224]224. Steinwert, M. L. (2017). The perfection student: How perfectionism and motivation influence academic outcomes and well-being. Unpublished masters thesis: California State University.
  13. [260]260. Zweig, D. (2015). Invisibles: The Power of Anonymous Work in an Age of Relentless Self-promotion. New York: Penguin.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Related

See all

Metadata

Authors
Curran, T., & Hill, A. P.
Affiliations
York St John University (GB)
ORCID
Venue
Psychological Bulletin
Publisher
American Psychological Association (APA)
Published
2019-04
Volume
145
Issue
4
Pages
410-429
ISSN
  • 0033-2909 (ISSN-L)
  • 1939-1455
DOI
10.1037/bul0000138
OpenAlex
W2775780184
Cited by
780
References
264
Citations by year
2026: 116 · 2025: 111 · 2024: 89 · 2023: 98 · 2022: 102 · 2021: 113 · 2020: 81 · 2019: 53
FWCI
6.29
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Psychological Bulletin (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Research at York St John (York St John University) (acceptedVersion)
  • London School of Economics and Political Science Theses Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (acceptedVersion)
  • London School of Economics and Political Science Research Online (London School of Economics and Political Science) (acceptedVersion)
  • Pure (University of Bath) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Perfectionism, Procrastination, Anxiety Studies
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Personality Traits and Psychology
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Social Psychology › Grit, Self-Efficacy, and Motivation
Keywords
perfectionism, self-oriented perfectionism, socially prescribed perfectionism, other-oriented perfectionism, birth cohort differences, cross-temporal trends, university students, neoliberalism, competitive individualism, cultural change, Multidimensional Perfectionism Scale
MeSH terms
Perfectionism, Adult, Canada, Female, United Kingdom, Humans, Male, Students, United States, Young Adult

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review